Happy Hallowe'en!

Hello, friends! I hope you'll indulge my parental amusement for a minute. This is the jack o'lantern designed by our resident 3-year-old. Is it just me, or is a small child's drawing of a face more frightening than any deliberately spooky design?

I mean, I wouldn't want to sit next to this character on a long-distance bus ride…

I had an fantastic Hallowe'en surprise yesterday when this was delivered to my door:

Food52 is a place where anyone can join to enter their recipes in contests (or you can just hang out, comment, and drool over the gorgeous food photography). They give out lovely prizes and compile the winners into cookbooks such as this one. The site is now extremely competitive; casual cooks beware! But back in the days when things were, shall we say, still in my league, I won a contest with my recipe for Overnight Steel-Cut Oats. It's here, now, in the first Food52 Cookbook and I'm absolutely tickled.

What did you get up to for Hallowe'en? Were there any surprises – pleasant or otherwise – in your day?